The Mixed Bag, December 2024

Ho ho ho! 🤶🏼

The Mixed Bag is a curated list of stuff I’ve enjoyed this month: books, podcasts, talks, the occasional movie or TV show, and more. We’ll be back to regular programming in the next issue.

🐾 in case you missed it

• I’ve experienced seasonal melancholy since my 30s, but changing my year-end routine has made a big difference and kept the December sadness at bay.

• How do you even play when times are tough and life’s messy?

• An attempt at turning experiences into some kind of wisdom 😊: What I learned in 2024

• This month’s In Profile is Cathy Jacob of The Slow Sip.

• On the Second Breaks podcast: When The Scary Thing Becomes What You Love

🔗 finds

• Julie Wise
  writes, “Change happens from the ground up. Real change. […] The kind of change that sprouts from the hearts and minds of kind, generous, thoughtful individuals. Like you and me.” Hear, hear.

• “I know what you may be thinking. ‘I don’t have a job like that where I can share Kindness so easily, so generously.’ Well, I don’t either. But I do meet people when I go for a walk, or go to the store, or go…. anywhere.”

  Nancy A
  has become that online friend who reminds me that kindness matters and it doesn’t have to be complicated. In this piece, she shares how she saw kindness turn into joy.

• Nicole Giordano
  explores what fun actually looks like in midlife. “When I first read that, I rolled my eyes. That’s ridiculous. No, that’s the point.”

• Adam Mastroianni
  writes, “A lot of people would like to make the world better, but they don’t know how. This is a great tragedy. It’s tragic not only for the people who need help, but also for the people who can help, because good intentions start to rot if you don’t act them out.” Thank Bread he also wrote seven underrated ways to change the world.

• What comes after accepting our problems? Enjoying them — that’s the flex. And also enlightenment, according to Chelsea Harvey Garner, director of Big Feels Lab, a nonprofit promoting collective mental health.

📚 reading

• Last month, I discovered Sarah Sutton, author of the Tara Mills detective series. This month, I read the second book in the series, One Last Breath. I think I’m going to continue with the third book. 😊

• Jodi Wellman’s You Only Die Once is a funny and irreverent conversation about the mandatory grand finale for all of us. And a crucial read, me thinks.

📺 watching

• A Man On The Inside on Netflix made me really want to be friends with Ted Danson. Seriously.

• I hesitated watching Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer series because I loved Matthew McConaughey’s film of the same title. But hey, I found this Haller version (half American, half Mexican, and a bit less gritty than the book version) quite fun to watch, too.

💬 last word

This is the last WAGO issue to go out in 2024! Unless something big and nasty happens between the time I send this and the first Sunday of 2025 — which, let’s be honest, cannot be ruled out these days — you’ll find me in my typical beginning-of-the-year position: full of hope, excited, and raring to go.

Jokes aside, I really do think there's much to be excited about. And I say this even after fuming over an aggravating news article just minutes ago. But I stand by it: there’s much to look forward to.

Because while all kinds of mad and horrid things may be happening in the world… well, there are also all kinds of beautiful, creative, gentle, and kind things we can do — for ourselves, for the people who matter to us, for the people we fight for, and for the values and ideals we hold dear. So, let’s be excited about that.

Here’s to 2025 and all that we can make it to be.

May the odds be ever in your favor,
Lou Blaser